N20°55’33” W017°02’22” – N18°13’08” W016°02’10”
Jan 29.
Km today: 485
When I want to pay the room before leaving I find out it is 13000 whatevers and not 3000. I am a little confused and it still seems to be ok for the bathtub and I had to heat the water using my TAUCHSIEDER so the electricity bill will pay the high price back. I am at the Freeteks place around 11 o clock just to tell them I will go ahead today – I like to arrive well before sunset so I have no hurry finding a place to sleep. It’s a different rhythm travelling on a bike or in a caravan too. They are just about making breakfast and I am hungry too so I want to hurry to the next petrol station (where ever that might be).
I hit the road and as I find out at the first village 100km later there is a petrol pump but only Diesel available. 180km to the next real petrol pump they tell me which are 20km less than I have petrol for. Game of luck but I hope they tell the truth and go on slowly to save petrol. The landscape is amazing and I am not really in a hurry anyway. 100km further there is a police checkpoint and a petrol station – but again only diesel. 60km more they tell me and ask for my guitar so I make a little music for them. They like the music and unlike in Morocco they show it and the guys even start singing with me! One guy is going same direction and promises to help if I run out of petrol (again).
Luckily the real petrol station appears 40km before I am completely finished and I even meet some nice guys from the Netherlands there. They tell me about a place to stay about 10km before Nouakchott. A camping place with some nomad tents directly at the beach. They tell me about many Mosquitos being in town and not a single one at the beach. That is enough information for me – price is 5 euro per night in the tent so this seems cool too. They also tell me that they know the situation I have been in in the morning pretty well. Telling one price in the evening and another one in the morning seems to be the most common tourist scam here – even more as the mauretanian French is very hard to understand sometimes when it comes to numbers ;). Best solution as we figure is to make them write the price down on a piece of paper and then keep it. That’s what I will do now.
A little after the petrol pump I overtake Andi and Julia and that’s the last time I see them today. 160km later I take a little piste at the right leading to the recommended beach. The camping ground is amazingly nice and run by the first French guy ever I like from the first moment. A few more overlanders stay there too so all is great. I go back to the main road to ask at the checkpoint to send Andi and Julia to the camping ground too. They should be about half an hour behind me so I expect them to come soon. They told me about a camping ground in town where I can come to meet them if we get lost.
However I stay and they don’t appear. Nicolas tells me later the police told him that they had not been at the checkpoint either. I hope they have no problem and will go to town to the meeting point tomorrow. However its already dark and even if I would go back I would never find them.
The camping ground is ice and I love my tent at the beach. Shared tent is 2000 (5 euro) like promised but unfortunately there is nobody to share with. Alone it will be 5000 but I speak to my new French friend Nicolas and he makes a nice price for me. Great place to be if u are in the area just use the coordinates at the top to find here. By the way the landscape started like desert today and became greener and greener then – more grassland then desert, seems like Sahara is finished already!
In the evening I meet a guy from germany in Nicolas’ restaurant and he tells me that three days ago some guys tried to kidnap friends of his in the no mans land between Morocco and Mauretania threatening them with machine guns. Seems like these lawless 4km between the borders are the only dangerous place here. So for the way back I will wait for other overlanders to go together too. Its probably strongly advisable to do so when taking this way.
